A Global LIS

Laboratory Information System for Global Health

The global health version of OpenELIS (http://openelisglobal.org) builds on the foundation provided by the original US Public Health Lab version of OpenELIS. Our challenge is to provide the flexibility demanded by different laboratories while maintaining a common code base. Some examples:

Some laboratories refer to the number attached to the sample as an accession number while others refer to it as a laboratory number.

End user computer literacy can not be assumed

Phone number formats vary country by country.

The number and kind of patient identifiers varies by country and type of laboratory.

Required patient demographics may depend on why a test is being requested.

Address fields are country dependent.

And many more...

Our goal in meeting the challenges is to ensure that the code does not become fractured by each variation in requirements. We have so far been successful and all of the implementations differ only by configuration files.

The work is done in partnership with International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH). They provide a wide perspective on the background, goals and collaborators of the work being done worldwide. For specifics of I-TECH's work in two countries where OpenELIS is being implemented: I-TECH in Haiti, I-TECH in Côte d'Ivoire.

OpenELIS Blog

As of May, 2012, to reflect our improved coordination of country specific implementation plans, we're consolidating future posts about progress, roadmaps, deployments, etc. on a new combined site: